Diamond in the Rough

Owning a horse (a green thoroughbred mare, no less) is a bit like juggling hamsters -- a tad unpredicable. Last Monday I had a good lesson on one of the schooling horses and was just cleaning up my stuff to head up to see Miss when the farm owner whizzes up to me in her golf cart with a worried look on her face. "Missy has a cut on her nose and needs stitches," she blurts out, then speeds off to pick up Willow. I head up to her stall to find a gash in her nose, a vertical cut about 2 inches long.

It seems she was up to her usual trick of trying to steal hay from her pony neighbor by sticking her head through the bottom of the pipe fence between their stalls and cut her nose on a sharp piece of hog wire when she pulled her head out. It wasn't bleeding and she didn't seem to be in any great pain, chowing down on her dinner, so we just cleaned it and left a message for the vet to come in the morning.

I rescheduled a client visit for another day and headed down on Tuesday so I could be there to pay the vet and check on her; I would just be too worried about her all day if I didn't. The cut was a lot deeper than any of us had thought and required a double layer of stitches to close it. She was so brave! He didn't have to anesthetize her, she just stood there and let him put a needle of lidocaine right into the wound then stitch her up. I, on the other hand, got woozy at the sight of that needle and all the blood on the cleaning gauze and had to step away.

I managed to snap this picture of her with her nice shaved nose with purple stitches. D said she looks like a moose! I had a carrot in my hand and she wouldn't back up so you get the extreme closeup shot.















Here's a picture of my new necklace as well. You can hate me, just a little bit, if you want.